Ethereum Replaces Litecoin as the World’s Third Cryptocurrency in Terms of Market Cap

Ethereum cryptocurrency (ETH) demonstrates hasty growth these days. In fact, it managed to replace Litecoin as the world’s third cryptcurrency in terms of market cap. In addition, ETH price has also increased.

According to data provided by CoinMarketCap, this weekend’s ETH market cap exceeds $172 million, while Litcoin’s cap comprises as much sa $141.5 million. Moreover, ETH has come very close to Ripple with its $174.7 million market cap.

However, the most impressive things can be seen at the ETH/USD and ETH/BTC charts. A single token’s USD worth has grown by 31.27% in a day, and currently it comprises $2.26. As for bitcoin, ETH/BTC rate growth comprises 28.21% (0.00564 BTC) at the time of writing. Just a week ago, one ETH token was worth only 0.00319 BTC.

Those results may be caused by the project’s recent activity growth. Investors and developers are immensely interested in Turing complete language underlying the Ethereum blockchain. The platform allows developers to build their own autonomous organizations (DAOs), as well as to write smart contracts and apps.

Another possible cause for Ethereum growth may be related to its integration in Microsoft Azure in late 2015. R3CEV employed the platform in testing its private blockchains for 11 banks. The distributed ledger was based on Ethereum network hosted by Microsoft Azure.

Some experts suggest Ethereum could eventually surpass even bitcoin in terms of market cap. However, as for now it seems a distant future, as current market cap of bitcoin exceeds $6 billion, and the ‘primary’ digital currency is way more popular among merchants, devices, and applications.